


Lonely Like Me

by StilesBastille24



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: F/M, First Love, Kyle & Zoe are meant to be, Zoe's life in retrospect
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-08-30
Packaged: 2019-07-04 14:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15842823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StilesBastille24/pseuds/StilesBastille24
Summary: The Academy changed everything. It was a world where a boy like Kyle Spencer looked at Zoe first. A world where a boy like Kyle Spencer saw Zoe as beautiful and interesting instead of strange and dark.Of course, this was also a world where a boy like Kyle Spencer died a senseless death due to the hideous acts of boys who would never have given Zoe a fifth glance, let alone a first.





	Lonely Like Me

When she was nine, Zoe learned what it meant to be second best. Their class had a Halloween costume competition. The student with the best homemade costume won a twelve set of Goosebumps books. Zoe spent two weeks making her costume; she learned to sew; used her allowance to buy the fabric. She made a witch’s costume. No, the irony was not lost on her eight years later. 

But the point was, her costume was dope. There were little plastic spiders sewn all of it. Gauzy cobwebs she painstakingly stitched below the spiders. Green and purple glittery gauze wrapped around the black skirt of the dress. She bought the hat from the store, but she’d sewn the hanging spider onto it herself. 

She came in second. The girl who won first had dressed up as Cindy Lou Who. Cadence Henry had put plastic cups and wire in her hair to make her pigtails stand up straight. She put a dot of red face paint on her nose. She wore a red woolen skirt her mother bought at Target and a pink winter sweater she’d worn to school last winter. 

Zoe went home, ripped off her dress, and threw it into the corner of her closet to be utterly forgotten about. She hadn’t cried. But the mirror on the back of her door had cracked. Retrospectively, she realized her powers were probably responsible for that, not the ear piercing scream of frustration she’d finally released when her parents went out that night to their Adult’s Only Halloween Party.

~*~*~*~

In sixth grade, there was this game, ZAP! When you got zapped, a friend etched the word ZAP onto the top of your hand then turned your hand over, writing with a gelly pen the name of a boy you were supposed to ask out.

In fourth period English, every girl and boy in Zoe’s class had one hand, at least, adorned with those three precious letters. Z-A-P. 

Zoe’s hand was pale and wordless as always. When Cassandra, the girl who lived two houses down from Zoe, saw her bare hand, she offered to ZAP her. “It’s fine,” Zoe had said, tucking her hands beneath her thighs.

But it wasn’t fine. She was the last one out, like always. Like every time they had to pick teams in gym. Like every time they picked partners in science class for experiments. Like the seats on the bus, the one beside her always empty. 

Maybe it was her inner witchiness. Maybe nonwitches could just sense it or something. She hadn’t known why when she was younger, but maybe that was the answer now. Or maybe, just maybe, Zoe had never fit in.

~*~*~*~

Eighth grade was awful. Her Home-Ec class did the humiliating egg-baby project. Zoe knew, from the moment her obnoxiously smiling teacher, Mrs. Edger, brought out the tray of eggs, each with a crayoned one set of eyes and smile, Zoe was going to be a single parent. While the other teenagers were giggling and shooting doe eyes at one another, Zoe preoccupied herself with chipping off her black nail polish.

“Hey.” A pencil nudged her in the back. 

Zoe turned around. “What?”

Brian, the kid with braces and red hair, grinned at her. Zoe felt her brows rise. Was it possible that Brian, the kid who had burned pancakes, wanted to raise fake offspring with her?

“Ask Mandy if she’ll be my partner.” Brian pointed his pencil toward the girl sitting in front of Zoe. 

Zoe turned around and resumed picking off her nail polish. 

When she brought the egg home at the end of the day, she had named her son Eggbert. She was a single mother who drew glasses onto her egg to make him look more brainy. He also eventually earned himself a lightening shaped scar. Zoe had been very into Harry Potter. Turned out she shouldn’t have worried about not receiving her Hogwarts Letter when she turned eleven.

~*~*~*~

Ninth grade was a different level of hell. Fourteen was an awkward age in general. Starting high school was incredibly awkward. And being one of the only freshmen who still looked twelve was unbelievably awkward.

But drama class as an elective? That was just unimaginably cruel. Before Ms. Manfreddy even announced the partner scenes, Zoe was trying to disappear into the room. Because that was another fun fact about drama class. There were no desks and chairs. Just a room with plush carpet, pillows everywhere, and a small step-up stage. 

“Zoe!” Ms. Manfreddy trilled, “The Crucible for you and your partner!”

With that play choice, it was hardly any shocker that Zoe failed to find a willing partner. In the end, Zoe performed Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy. She crushed it. She had spent long hours in front of the mirror practicing because if she was going to have to go it alone, she was going to go it alone in style. 

Manfreddy had cheered. The rest of the class had been too busy whispering their lines with their partners to watch. It had seemed incidental, at the time, that the school fire alarm went off and the rest of the class never got to perform their plays. Looking back now, probably not so much of a coincidence.

~*~*~*~

Then there was Charlie. She hadn’t been his first girlfriend. Not even his second. But he had been her first everything. First date, first kiss, first boyfriend, first time, first kill.

That’s when Zoe decided maybe being the first was not at all what it was cracked up to be.

~*~*~*~

The Academy changed everything. It ripped her out of her life and transported her into an entirely different world. A world where for once, Zoe fit in. Where being a witch wasn’t a tight lipped secret but a lesson waiting to be learned. Where girls like Madison Montgomery chose Zoe to be her friend. Where going out to a party on a Friday night wasn’t something she read about in a book.

A world where a boy like Kyle Spencer looked at Zoe first. 

A world where a boy like Kyle Spencer saw Zoe as beautiful and interesting instead of strange and dark. 

Of course, this was also a world where a boy like Kyle Spencer died a senseless death due to the hellacious acts of boys who would never have given Zoe a fifth glance, let alone a first.

~*~*~*~

Bringing Kyle back, that was Zoe’s first act of big magic. Meeting Misty was Zoe’s first real scare in her new world. Kyle was Zoe’s firsts in things she never new could have a first.

Misty was the first person Zoe had ever met who knew exactly how Zoe felt. Misty had never been picked first in her life. Not by god, not by nature, not by anything or anyone. Misty was also the first person Zoe had ever purposefully put second. Kyle was her first priority, Misty was a line on her to-do list. 

Kyle’s mom was the first corpse that had ever terrified Zoe. Charlie had been devastating, Kyle had been injustice, the frat boy had been revenge. But Kyle’s mom? She had been terror itself. 

And Kyle dressed in blood? That hadn’t done anything to help alleviate the fear Zoe was feeling. She had hoped Misty and Kyle’s mom would bring back the boy Kyle had been. Instead, Kyle was the first monster Zoe had ever been responsible for.

~*~*~*~

Kyle was the first person she saved. Wrenching the gun from his grip, feeling the bullet whiz past her face. That’s what it felt like to save a life. Even if it was the life of a dead boy.

Kyle was the first person Zoe had ever picked first, every time. Helping Madison adjust to life again fell second to helping Kyle regain a sense of him self. She put him first even when it hurt her. 

Kyle was the first boy to break her heart. Watching him pushing into Madison over and over again, watching Madison twist into his grip. Zoe’s heart had shattered. 

Kyle was the first boy she forgave for breaking her heart. Because she would put Kyle first no matter what, even in front of herself. She would keep helping him become a person, even if the person he became picked Madison first.

~*~*~*~

Kyle was also the first boy to tell Zoe he loved her. He was the first boy she said those words back to. And she didn’t believe it, not at first, that she was the first and only girl he had said those words to.

Zoe didn’t mention them to Madison, too afraid to hear Madison say that Kyle had told her the same thing earlier that day. She didn’t say them again to Kyle, afraid he would take them back. 

And when Madison threw those words in her face the next morning, Zoe denied them. It was the first lie Zoe had told Madison. It was followed closely by a second, that she wouldn’t care if Madison got on her kneepads and blew Kyle. 

Zoe was waiting for the crushing blow, waiting for Kyle to lean back in pleasure as Madison made good on her promise. When Kyle’s eyes met Zoe’s across the room, she saw the boy from the night of the party. The boy who had picked her first. The boy whose smile had promised he would always pick her first. 

And then he had. Kyle had shoved Madison away, had said those words Zoe had been so afraid she’d never hear again. “I love Zoe.”

~*~*~*~

It was a whole new world of firsts after that. Of learning how to compromise when she wanted to not just put Kyle first, but to put them, their relationship first. It started with listening to Myrtle and convincing Kyle to runaway with her.

Then came admitting that she had been wrong and the best thing was for them to return to the Academy. It was watching her boyfriend be forced by her ex-friend, and Madison was her first and only ex-friend, to lick said friend’s shoe. 

It was being stuck in a nightmare world where Kyle took back those three precious words over and over, where he told her she was never his first choice, only an accident that he regretted. It was coming awake to having Kyle choose her first again. To being held in arms that were the first to make her feel safe. 

It was dying on a gate, impaled, and realizing she would be breaking a promise for the first time, to be with Kyle always.

~*~*~*~

When Zoe’s eyes snap open, she feels a scream pushing at her lips. Dead. She had been dead. That was a first she hadn’t been expecting to experience for a very long time.

“Kyle?” she gasps, stumbling off the greenhouse table and dropping heavily to her feet. 

“I don’t know,” Queenie says “He was pretty broken up when you seemed to be dead for good.”

Zoe hears the words but doesn’t really take them in. She’s making for the door and winding towards the staircase before she stops herself. Cordelia, Myrtle, and Queenie are watching her from the greenhouse doorway. 

“Cordelia?” The name comes out as lifeline. 

Cordelia sweeps Zoe up in her arms, hugging her gently but firmly. 

“Thank you,” she whispers, face buried in Cordelia’s shoulder. 

Cordelia kisses the side of her head. “Always.”

Zoe steps back, squeezes Cordelia’s hand gratefully once more, then heads back toward the staircase. It takes her longer than ever before, her limbs not quite cooperating fully yet. When she reaches the bedroom, she thinks of Madison for the first time. Why hadn’t she been down there with the others? 

Zoe knocks at the door. It’s her room and she knocks, because something feels off. What if the moment she was gone, Kyle put Zoe second? Chose Madison instead? 

“What?” Kyle shouts through his door, even that one word blurred by anger, a remnant of his former self Fiona’s spell didn’t seem to be able to spruce up. 

“Kyle?” Zoe pushes the door open. 

It’s barely halfway open before she is consumed by Kyle. Her entire body lifted up, carried to the bed. He lays her down, climbs up on top of her, and stares down with reverence. “Zoe!”

Zoe lifts her hands up, frames Kyle’s face within them. “Hi,” she whispers. 

“Who?” he asks. 

“Cordelia. She’s the Supreme now too.” Her thumbs rub against the curves of Kyle’s cheekbones. “I missed you.”

Kyle rests his forehead against hers, spends a moment just breathing her in. “I love you, Zoe, so much.”

“I love you too, Kyle.” She presses kisses down the bridge of his nose. 

“I was so scared,” Kyle confesses, his voice breaking. “I don’t want to live my life without you in it. You’re everything to me, Zoe.”

“I’m here now,” Zoe promises. She leans up so she can kiss away his tears. “It’s you and me, Kyle. For always.”

Kyle is her first love and she plans for him to be her last too.


End file.
